Claire and James both had a "Meet the Teacher" event on Monday. Both were quite happy afterward. Tom reported that James talked his teacher's ear off. Claire was thrilled that her classroom had a brand new leather couch in it. Both kids signed up for some after-school activities: James--Cub Scouts and Lego Junior Engineers. Claire---Girl Scouts (which evidently is quite challenging to join in Hong Kong---available slots went quickly). Claire is also doing Faust again, but we had already signed up for that.
On Tuesday, I woke the kids up at 5:45. Not a pleasant time for children to be awake. They were troopers and got ready quickly. Mariz made breakfast, their lunches and helped them get ready. (We double-teamed them.) We were out of the door on time and were able to park at the high school, head down to the middle school and then out to their bus stop.
Here are a couple of photos from the bus stop:
Note: While I do not feel comfortable posting pictures of my own students on my blog, I feel okay with posting these photos. In my mind, the difference is that I photographed my own children here as a parent. There just happened to be other students around. Not sure if that makes sense to other people or not.
I did try to take my traditional first day of school photo in front of our boat. Unfortunately my lens fogged up due to the difference in temperature and humidity level between the inside and out. Must try it again soon.
I was more concerned with how Claire would adapt to school than James as she's given the characters of Dawson's Creeka run for their money with regards to angst. (Her vocabulary is more straight forward than theirs, though.) Turned out I was completely wrong. Claire bounded off the bus and proclaimed that school was great. James was in tears. He cried all the way from Repulse Bay to Tai Tam and later cried for over an hour that night. Poor thing. He really missed his "old school" and "hated" his new one. But then he'd tell me about some of the fun things he did: heard a story about Mean Jean the Recess Queen, learned a prayer that was set to the Addams Family theme song and made up a ball game at recess.
Day Two (today) went a lot better for James. I emailed his teacher to give her a head's up and she went out of her way (I think) to make him feel included. He was all smiles this afternoon. Claire, on the other hand, was in a fairly foul mood mainly due to the swimming unit in PE. "It's no fun at all," she said. She was told to swim using various strokes none of which she knows. I think the instructors were trying to sort out swimming levels. I hope the next lesson goes better and incorporates some element of fun. One can hope! Claire still likes her teacher a lot and is making some friends. She was already invited to a birthday party this Saturday (at the American Club) but can't make it due to preparation for her Grade 1 Piano exam.
Both kids (finally!) went to sleep at a relatively sane hour tonight (around 8:40). I'm hoping to move that up but it's been very difficult for them to fall asleep.
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